PERSICO, IGNAZIO. – Cardinal, born in Naples on 30 January 1823, died in Rome on 7 December 1895; he entered the Capuchins in 1839 and was ordained a priest in 1846. He immediately asked to be sent to the missions, and the S. Congregation of Propaganda sent him to Patna (India), where the apostolic vicar, servant of God A. Hartmann, wished him to share his labors.
Accordingly, when he was transferred to Bombay in 1850, Hartmann took him with him. There he founded and directed the Bombay cath. examiner, which is still published; he fought alongside Hartmann and distinguished himself in the struggle against the schism of Goa. In 1853 he was sent as Hartmann’s special delegate to Rome and as commissioner of the apostolic vicars of India to London, in order to defend the cause of the missions before the government, obtaining its recognition of the authority of the apostolic vicars. In 1854 he was appointed Hartmann’s coadjutor, and in 1856 apostolic vicar of Hindustan (Agra). During the uprising of the Indians against the English he suffered greatly and then came to Europe.
In Rome he presented, together with Hartmann, various proposals or Memoranda for the improvement of the missions; he then returned to India. Having fallen ill in 1860, he was forced to return to Italy. After the War of Secession, he was sent by the Holy See in 1866 on a secret mission to the United States; in 1869 he took part in the Provincial Council of Baltimore and then in the First Vatican Council. In 1870 he was appointed bishop of Savannah, but had to resign in 1873 for reasons of health. In 1874 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Canada; in 1877 he was in the Indies to settle the Syro-Chaldean schism in Malabar and to prepare for the establishment of the hierarchy in India. In 1879 he was promoted bishop of the three united dioceses of Aquino, Pontecorvo, and Sora, which he governed until 1887, when he was proclaimed archbishop of Damiata and sent to Ireland for the Home-rule question. On his return to Rome, the Holy See appointed him vicar of the Vatican Chapter and, in 1891, secretary of the S. Congr. de Prop. Fide. Finally, in 1893, Leo XIII created him cardinal priest of the title of S. Pietro in Vincoli and appointed him prefect of the S. Congregation of Indulgences and of the S. Relics. Amid so many labors and such a variety of legations and missions, invested with so high a dignity, he always caused the humility and affable graciousness of the true son of s. Francesco to shine forth.